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Not sure if I belong here
I have been participating for about a year, and I have made it clear that I am not a Buddhist, so I don't contribute Answers requiring knowledge of the scriptures (although I know something about that.) I answer when it appears that a personal perspective is OK. I also ask questions, because I am interested to learn how Buddhists would answer some questions that I have.
In actuality I am interested in Nonduality (as you probably know if my name is familiar) and there is no SE site for that. I tried to start one, but I do not know enough people to generate a snowball of interest. It fizzled completely. (Sad, because there are people and resources all over the web.)
I have been asked to not make non-useful comments, which is fair. I do comment a lot, and often to no purpose. Some of my questions and answers get voted up, some down. But overall, I don't feel that I really belong here. It is simply the only place I know of to work with other people on these ideas at all. Is there a better place for my interest?

I cannot comment on non duality, but if you have any interest in reading/posting questions or answers with any relation to Buddhism, I hope this site is and continue to be useful to you (in the end, useful is all it can be).

There is no such as real non-duality aside of Nibbana and if you do not just seek for a place where people simulate certain non-duality by getting absolute defuse, if one seeks the Heartwood, then Mr/Mrs no comprende is best situated to dwell between people who can give a share of how to gain such or who are willing to help you getting grid of ones horns.
And Atma would need to doubt much, that the community that you have here would not give any possible support. So you are doing them a favor as well if they need to special scarifies to and service to get you, if willed, ...

tamed and on the line to real non-duality.
So no need to seek a better place as within Buddhas Dhamma. The question it self "where i belong" that is fare away from "non-duality". So better then thinking "somewhere I belong" is to search for a real home: In Simple Terms

@SamanaJohann from your link "In Simple Terms": "People speaking the truth don't come to closure." This is like when my mystic facet said to me one day: "Words represent a state of imbalance." So, we need to close the site down now. Bye!

Even those with vibhava-tanha (desire for not being) come back and that somewhere else birth, if not again at the same place. Its a duality problem. So till later then. Or you take a read on right speech if not doing Jhana, Mr/mrs no comprende..

@no comprende This site wouldn't be the same without you.

No one belongs anywhere :) No, seriously. You think I belong here? But you have no idea what goes on in my mind, and how this site fits into my daily life. Belonging anywhere is totally an illusion, is only an appearance. Real situation is always a lot more complicated, full of inner contradictions etc. Relax. We are all like this.
If you take me for example, I don't identify with (do not belong to) any Buddhist tradition. I have a lot of respect for every tradition, but I also have a lot of issues with one-sided attitudes inherent in almost any tradition. They all define themselves via "and here's where our opponents are wrong - and that's what makes us right". And yet, I keep swimming in the sea of traditions - answering questions as they pertain to Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism etc. But if you ask me what I really think about Buddhism - it's nothing like what we're talking about here. Imagine what that means for my feeling of "belonging" here or anywhere.
As for your affinity with nonduality, what can I say. If you ignore all that Buddhist mythology and terminology that we spend so much time discussing here, and just focus on the end result (whether in Theravada or Mahayana) - you will see that the final Buddhist answer to people's problems is firmly in the area of experience, not ontology. Ontological speculations in Buddhism are only as valid as skilful means that lead to experiential liberation. Experiential! Herein hides the key to your dilemma. If we take nonduality as an ontological state of things - with all its validity - it may or may not have any liberating effect on an actual human being. And if human being takes nonduality as his/her frame of reference, they may or may not achieve full liberation - depending on whether they have any other mental or emotional hangups unaffected by the realization of nonduality. See what I mean?
If we take nonduality as simply the state of absolute all-inclusive totality, with no reference point, it may be too remote from someone's experience to actually make difference to their personal dukkha. But if we learn to not hold on to any fleeting experience, and to not get caught up in any categorization, and to not make any concept our ground - then and only then we're adopting the true spirit of nonduality - without even making nonduality an object of our mind. "Tao we speak about is not the actual Tao" - remember? Same way, nonduality as our description of the ontological state of things is not the actual attainment of non-attainment of nonduality. Having no attachment is.
You can even see this in your present situation. Insofar as you identify with this concept of nonduality, you keep on fabricating some kind of barrier between "you" and "your perspective" and "Buddhism" and "our perspective". That's a typical case of duality! Now if you actually take nonduality as your modus operandi, and drop your identification with it as a reference point - you will break right out to where you think you are, except you will no longer stand on the concept.
I hope this makes sense. I just want to emphasize the big difference between "Brahmanical" kind of nonduality "I am one with the Universe, what you call God, and Spontaneously exist as self-illuminating Gnosis" -- and the Buddhist kind of nonduality of which we can't even say anything because it's not found in any single state of mind.
If that's where you are, then you totally "belong" in the same place where I belong, which is no where. And then for the sake of being able to communicate with your fellow "nondualists" you may want to study the language of Madhyamaka (if you are a rational type) or the language of Prajnaparamita (if you are an intuitive type). You don't have to be lonely.
But then if you truly feel that you want to be a Brahmanical type of nondualist, then you can go and seek the community of Adyashanti's students. There is nothing wrong with seeking the company of likeminded people.
It's all good either way! Hugs....

Will have to grok when I have more time and brainpower. Thank you for the considered reply. I don't think that I am stuck on an idea, I just wish to be respectful of the general purpose of this site and the people who use it. I have always said that nonduality is the direct apprehension of experience, not a concept or position. As such, it applies everywhere, like you say. But not everyone wants Green Eggs and Ham.

I'm sorry to hear that. I want to make it clear that this site is not a Buddhist site and its not only for Buddhists. Its both for Buddhists, Non-Buddhists, people interested in Buddhism and the like.
Just because you are not Buddhist does not mean that you do not belong here. Buddhism is just a conventional word.
I see you have several high-voted questions and you have been here for a year. That is really good and yearlings who participate on the site, are necessary for the site as they fall into the category of established users.
From a practical and insight-meditational point of view, problems occur when we add a "self" to the equation, e.g. its "me" who don't belong here or "I" do not belong here.
I don't know whether or not you meditate or if you do, what kind of technique you practice. I will tell you how my tradition (Mahasi Sayadaw) handles doubts and identifications with a self. When doubt arises we view it objectively and make a mental note of it as "doubting, doubting or "thinking, thinking", while sending the mind out to the object. We treat it as just a mental phenomena. The same goes for identification or the process of taking ownership of phenomena. We note that as a mental phenomena as well. We try to cultivate insights from these hindrances, i.e. the three marks of existence and the 16 stages of insight.
My point is that you can deal with this in different ways. The way I'm proposing is always the practical, insight-meditational way. Let me know if you want to discuss this on the chat or if you like to have more information.
Regarding Non-duality. Have you searched on Reddit.com? I found a bit here. I don't if this is what you are looking for. There is also a Philosophy SE that might be worth checking out.
I hope you will consider your stay here. If you should decide to leave I wish you the best of luck in the future. You will always have this site that you can come back to if interest should arise again.
May you be well and happy.

Thank you, trying to sort it out now. I have to read your answer more closely. I always wondered what would happen if I thought: "noting, noting"... glurp! (discontinuity)

stop wondering and try it out ;) http://www.sirimangalo.org/text/how-to-meditate/

Hm, I've lost most of my links/connections to other Buddhist, Zen and/or tantric forums, so I can't be really of help with references; the only forums I know are in the usenet (accessible via "newsreader" and mostly some login into the newsgroups-server). For the serious discussion of duality/nonduality (as a duality itself(?) ;-) ) I think also forums with some taoistic flair might be interesting. The only "(neo-) tantric" forum I knew of has close a couple of years ago and its descendent ("Lotus lounge") seems not to be interested in serious conceptual discussions.
I know also, that nonduality is a big issue in the Sufi and even in the Baha'i religion and possibly of interest, however this is of course a different line and I made this sometimes a bit fruitful for me as long as I was engaged in the "interreligious dialogue" and had friends with such denominations. I think there is a Baha'i-forum still operating and my impression was that there was some good and serious spirit also for such questions - sorry I don't have the link at the moment.

For the question of which Stackexchanges discuss nonduality, this search.
Today, it seems Philosophy SE, Buddhism SE, Hinduism SE. I would imagine you'd get Greek tinged nonduality, Buddhist tinged nonduality and Advaita nonduality respectively.
As for the realization of nonduality, I've always been curious about what the consequences are, i.e. for personal life. So things are one & not two, so then what? In the case of a religion, (albeit one with many sects who radically disagree at times), there is an orthodox answer to what the consequences are.  I'm prejudiced to think that in modern western philosophy, the consequence of nonduality is either "the current social-political system is fine, carry on" or "we need a revolution of the proletariat, stat!". In the case of Buddhism, the consequences is "we ought to follow the Eightfold path" or in Zen "you don't know what nondualism is, but when you do, you'll know what to do".
Anyhow, my point is that a religion (& to a certain extent secular philosophy departments) have an agenda, if you agree with the agenda, then that is where you'll feel comfortable.

For an apparently agenda-free secular take on western nondual experience from a well-known author, try the recent book: "Waking Up - A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" by Sam Harris. It is a bestseller and you should have no trouble finding it. He is a long-time meditator and has studied several approaches over his lifetime. I agreed with most of what he said, I hope this book makes a real difference in peoples' lives. I just read it recently and have not previously read anything by him.


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Is there a way to give a acknowledgement (reputation) for an edit?
Since that is one of the most generous deeds and helpful for everyone, are there ways to do such?
It would be great if such would have 1. Share of the answer and question reputations (1:1), if the "original" author has given his "Thanks!" or "great!" or "Right!" and 2. should earn a lot form the authors "approve" (the double of an answer reputation).
Of course upvoting is not of use.
Atma guesses that such is not only a more then earned way to give the work of those who are doing such service back, but also would encourage others to try such meritorious deeds.

Giving 'reputation' to people who edit
According to What is reputation? How do I earn (and lose) it?, users can get +2 reputation for each edit:

suggested edit is accepted: +2 (up to +1000 total per user)

Perhaps this only happens for users who have less than 1000 reputation: because when someone has more than 1000 reputation then their edits are made immediately (before being reviewed and accepted).
There are, also, many 'badges' associated with editing: a search for the word 'edit' on this page of badge descriptions finds 11 badges including "Explainer", "Refiner", "Illuminator", etc.
Please also review Why can people edit my posts? How does editing work?

Requesting new software features
This site (Buddhism.SE) uses software from the "Stack Exchange" network.
"Stack Exchange" do the following:

Develop and maintain the (closed-source) web software
Host and run the web site[s]
Define network-wide policies (e.g. the Help pages)
Host other web sites on other topics (other than Buddhism)

Each site (including this site, Buddhism.SE) is semi-autonomous:

Its own topic of interest (e.g. Buddhism)
Its own community of users
Its own site-specific policies, defined by its users (including e.g. these policies)

Each site has its own meta-site (i.e. this one, https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/), to help the site's users and to discuss the site-specific policies.
On this site we can help explain what the site's existing software features are (usually using the support tag); however, any feature-request topics which request new features should instead perhaps be made on the meta-site for the whole network, which is at https://meta.stackexchange.com/.

I say that because I'm not sure how often SE employees read this https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/ meta-site -- maybe it's not very often; also a new feature request might be more likely to be implemented it it were very highly up-voted by users from all SE sites, not only by the users of this site.
Beware that there appear to be 20,000 topics tagged 'feature-request' on that site -- my personal opinion is that, because they already have so many new feature requests, there's probably little benefit in making many more new requests.

Sadhu! So it does not seems that there could be a possible different way.

How about a "fake" question. What edit did you made? And editors would give a link when made.
That would be a way inside the given software frame. Of course same work, but also a way to get even feedback.

I think you'e suggesting that people could create fake posts as a vehicle for upvoting each other in order to award increases in reputation (as a reward for editing). That wouldn't work well -- for example because each fake could only be upvoted once (if I edited 10 posts and you wanted to reward me 10 times, I would need to create 10 different fakes for you to upvote). That behaviour could, also, easily look like a voting ring to SE's automated vote fraud detection software.

Atma made already a test question, as you have seen: http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1888/what-edit-did-you-made
It should make it more clear. Its a good way to give the editor the possibility to get feedback, if wished and does in no way influence his normal possibilities.
Actually nothing of it is really a fake, its quite serious and even in the frame of everything here.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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What edit did you made here on Buddhism SE?
If you like to get some feedback of your generous work in editing questions and answers, to improve your work and tho have some feedback, just post the link of your edit and maybe some comments.
Why you should answer this question not only now but often?

to keep meta discussions in regard of improvements away from the main topic
to encourage you and others to make improvements and edits
to have at least good quality of questions and answers
to improve your work
to give a possibility for others to honor your work
to have a place to get feedback of what you have done and do
to let you know that good deeds have good fruits if not sure about that
to give also moderators a good amount of feedback in regard of edits and there approve.

To make it possible to give such as reputation for edits or certain feedbacks to them and comming form the question "is-there-a-way-to-give-a-acknowledgement-reputation-for-an-edit" Atma thought to give this way aside of the software functions a change.
Just a link or what ever you like to mention in regard of your executed edit is a fine placed.
It gives also space for finer feedback. Try to answer!

I think that any upvotes on meta-topics have no effect on "reputation".

It should be no problem to simply put it into the main place, if such is wished. At least it should give just a sample even if adoptable. On the other hand, its maybe quite good to have it without "earning of reputation" effects, as a answering here could be otherwise seen as "Hey, give me some reputations", which could be the only reason for misuse. Of course Atma is not so talented in introduce it in a pleasant way, but guesses that such use would have good generally effects if used often. And server and editor is naturally normal no person who likes to earn visible reputations.

Atma made an addition here yesterday, not sure if right and proper.
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/7306/7500

It was fine, a good edit. It started as a suggested edit and was approved by moderator (Lanka). Also each time you edit a topic it moves to the top of the active view, so probably several people review each edit.

The reference was to a page of sangham.net whose topic is Sister Uppalavanna? When you give a reference for a quote, it might be more normal to reference the page (web site or book) on which you found the quoted text (written by Sister Uppalavanna).

There is a download link of Ven Sitsters given work in this tread for those who are interested: http://sangham.net/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=get136. Atma did not like to stress it, since it is not known if such is really good. Atma did not fine time to actually present them, only some are already online avaliable. AN1-AN4: here http://sangham.net/index.php/page,AN-en.html

You can review the list of edits which anyone has made, by looking at the their user profile.

Select the user's profile
Choose the "Activity" tab
Select "All actions" and then "Revisions"

For example, the edits I made are listed here: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/254/chrisw?tab=activity&sort=revisions

Atma is not allowed to edit your post here. So just as sample ChrisWs answer would be: http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/13334/7500

Could check it and vote, up and down. And do so now.

Atma made an edit, since the context was not clear of where the answer and the quotes in it where originated
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/13366/7500

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Stack Exchange in regard of skill, time, material things (possibility to practicing certain other mertiouse deeds) wished/possible?
Atma wonders if there would be the possible and wish to make the practice of things like dana (gerneosity in regard of material things) or Veyyāvaca (serving others with time skill and effort) possible within Buddhism SE.
Maybe it could be done by a certain tag or even a sub-SE like meta.
Possible examples:

How could take care of my cat (I try to join a retreat in May)?
Can somebody help be to convert Dhamma texts into pdf for my website?
We are planing to erect a Kuti. Do you like to join in this deed?

It would be also a matter in regard of deeds like inviting others to join ones merits by telling about them and therefor giving the chance to rejoice with them.
Atma is not sure if such would be now wished and welcome, since stack exchange seems to be limited on stacks in regard of mainly third part knowledge and knowledge as far as seen.

Thanks for the proposal Bhante.
I think the Stack Exchange Format is not suited for such requests. This is an expert-forum based on the formular of "best-answer" possible. Diverting too much from this format could harm it or subtract from it.
This is my opinion on the topic as a moderator. I'm looking forward to see others opinion on it.

Thanks for your thoughts Mr/Mrs Lanka. Why should such harm having the "best answer"? Its btw not really meant as an porposal, its just a suggestion since Atma guesses that Dhamma practice is the most prior intention of this undertaking and nothing better to learn by actually doing.


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Is your question already answered or simply lost in samsara stream here?
It could be easy that your question got lost and your are still not satisfied. Assuming that many questions are not marked as solved because the questioner simply forgot or has lost the interest on his question does not make it for sure to work off all questions.
So that your question does not become a victim of such assuming, you may have the possibility to answere here and post a link to it, even if it is not your question but you would desire a satisfactory answer.
Others would have the possibility to make maybe useful Dana (generosity) by giving it a start bounty (meaning giving away some of their reputations to benefit the location of your question) or by simply become aware of your wish and doing direct service (Veyyāvaca).
Note: As it has become a meta topic, its also of use for questions of how things are done, living with the system.

Unanswered questions can be improved with edits, if your question has a similar question that was never closed, you can edit it and make the question easier to read, fix grammar and formatting etc.
This moves the question "Up the stack"
If you do not see a question that matches your question you should just ask your question.  Sometimes someone else will show a possible duplicate and if the pointed at duplicate answers your original question then you can close the question. If it does not, you can edit your question so that it is more clear as to why the pointed at question is not a duplicate.

It's good to have a meta answer here. Maybe your info would be good included in the question as info of normal ways when you see this as reason why your question got lost.


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How could one contact a moderator?
Is there a way? If using the flag (Atma assumes that such would reach one) possibility it seems that it would cause somebody to lose some of his/her reputation.
Is there a link a chat or what ever? And could there take place any communication, not like the flag possibility which seems to be limited?
Thanks for the answer(s) in advanced.

To contact moderators privately a flag (a flag will contact any/all moderators).
Flagging a post has no automatic effect on reputation. I think you can't flag your own posts but you can flag e.g. any moderators' posts or comments.
A moderator can initiate a private chat with any user. So in your flag you can choose "in need of moderator intervention" and type a message like, "please contact me for a private chat".

Ohh, that choice did not appear when using the flag in the discussion area of a question and also has no red-10 image. That looks better and good, Sadhu!

You should have seen a message in your inbox. How about this link: http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/33653/private-chat-with-samana-johann

Flagging is one way. Posting here on Meta is another way. Actually, you don't even need to contact us, one of us four should be online most of the time. We are watching most question threads and comment discussions. If there is anything you want you can just mention "moderator" in the comment text and more often than not you will be heard.

It could be something that you would not like to have the public be known about, as a moderator as well as somebody who seeks contact, Mr. Andrei Volkov. That was the reason to ask. Its btw. a good way, you do it here and avoid much underground and double work.

Sure, if it's private then yes what ChrisW said applies.

Let Atma call it discrete or careful, private (interest) is never good for a community.


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"for any purpose, even commercially" is such in the frame of Dhamma sharing?
Atma just became aware that he maybe made some mistakes by giving Dhamma under such circumstance with strings attached. But that is a personal problem to fix that, since he just became aware of that fact by reading (to late) the Subscriber Content - TOS here.
Nevertheless, maybe you like give it a good discussion and find the right answer.

I assume you're asking whether we consider it proper to "share Dhamma" (including our referencing other people's copyrighted resources) on this Buddhism.SE site, given that this site uses a content license which lets people reuse ("share" and "adapt") content "for any purpose, even commercially".

The current content license is here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
I think that license says that people may share and/or adapt the content for any purpose (e.g. people may copy it for free, and/or they may sell a book in which it is printed), provided they attribute it.
Regardless of this site's ToS, I hope that the way in which I include in my answers (as referenced/attributed quotes) small extracts (e.g. a paragraph or two), from any book or other web site, is considered Fair use.
Earlier, Yuttadhamo Bikkhu posted this answer on the subject of copyright. The concern he expressed in that answer doesn't (in my opinion though I'm not a lawyer) apply to this site's licence: because even if someone did sell this site's content they couldn't sue you for also distributing the same content freely, because the content is also licensed to you (by the CC BY-SA 3.0 license) just as it is to them.
If you would consider Access to Insight, for example, ATI's FAQ about 'excerpts' says explicitly,

"If the excerpt falls within the scope of "Fair Use" (see Wikipedia), then you are free to use the excerpt and no further permission is required. If the excerpt is more substantial, please contact the author or original publisher to request permission."

In summary I hope that I'm not wrong in assuming that I use (reference) these resources, according to the letter of the law and according to the spirit in which authors make their work available to the public.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The thing is, when you look at it from a big picture there are not strings attached. The site ultimately runs on advertisement revenue, and they do a great job of not being invasive with them.
Their terms of service must then include that the content contributed can be redistributed for such reasons, as their very platform depends on it.
The content you put up here can be seen by anyone looking for it, provided they have an internet connection.
This is a great opportunity for you to practice generosity without an expectation of outcome.
Perhaps you worry the site or community has some type of ulterior motive or agenda, but I really doubt that such is the case. Even if it was (It isn't) why should a gift include a caveat that the receiving ends cannot do what they want with it?
After all, edits are peer reviewed, a question and answer might slowly transform and become clear and concise, if the right person viewed the topics most suited for their experience.
No one owns the Dhamma, you cannot buy or sell it, and even if you could, where could you ever find a fair price?
I worry that you might have gotten the wrong first impressions about the community.
This might not be the sangha you are used to, as a forest monk the community you are a part of is vastly different.
I took my time writing this, it had my one pointed concentration.
I hope it finds you well, I hope you can take time to marvel that you are communicating with someone 8,649 mi away, (approximately) someone you might not share the same world view, but has interest in yours, and thinks that your perspective could add value to this stack exchange.

Actually the question was not in regard of this certain trade place but generally meant, as for your excuses why you use it either, developing rationalization, what would it take to share Dhamma in Buddhas economy? What would it take to provide such a place and what would it take to leave the worldly means and seek for Dhamma? A lot of letting go?

Today many people often meet together, but they do not gather and create the opportunity to help each other to correct their faults and to improve it, but just for the sake of becoming. Look even at Sangha meetings. They are already impossible. All you would meet are meetings of "don't criticize" we need to thinks on harmony and on prosper (dinner and entertainment launched by coca cola and mindfulness Inc.) That is how to destroy the Dhamma and its real economy.  Right livelihood

@samana johann good to see you back

If Atma would say "nobody comes, nobody goes" you would understand it wrong, if Atma would be honest and tell you that there is still a reminder of "Bodhisattva" stupidity left, you would understand it wrong. So be how ever sure that it is not for sure, Mr/Mrs Hellyale and has conditions. Expensive ones, you have to give up a lot for it. Everything that is unskillful.


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What favicon/icon logo would you like to have for Buddhism SE?
Present you idea and design one, you could use such tools like http://www.favicon.cc/ (no special skills necessary)
And! Vote for the best. (it's the makers choice of course, if they wish so, so it not my person who decides at all)
Be aware that, in the case you save it there that you are able to present it, stick to their conditions as well as it you save it here, if such is possible.
In the case you like to give it to the community here (actually to StackExchange), don't miss to express it consciously. Maybe the team here likes the idea and takes the most voted one. Maybe some would even give it a bounty.
How ever, much joy with your creative answers and generosity. Maybe you like to share even an explaining of how you thoughts have been to make it this or that way and discuss the graphic expression.

Thank you for your suggestion, Bhante.
Perhaps I should tell you that we (the community of users) are unable to edit the web site's software functionality, page layout, and other style-related content. See also Allowing CSS customization of beta sites (which was proposed to Stack Exchange but which is not a feature-proposal which they have accepted); and see Graduation, site closure, and a clearer outlook on the health of SE sites (which describes what it means to be a "Beta" site, and mentions that they have a long backlog in their queue of 'style' changes).
That said, if we (the community) did choose or design a favicon, I expect that the SE designer would consider that suggestion, if or whenever this site does 'graduate', and they consider designing style customizations for this site.

For those who don't know, the 'favicon' which you suggest we redesign is the icon that appears in the chrome of browser tabs, or when the site appears in a bookmark, favourite, or shortcut.
The current favicon for the site is:
favicon http://cdn.sstatic.net/buddhism/img/favicon.ico

ups... sigh seem to be not easy for you here, even the environment is most seductive. (no comment on the porposal and who...)

Would you mark this answer as 'accepted', if you don't mind? Because if a topic has no accepted answer then it will repeatedly, periodically, jump to the top of the 'active' view to get attention (which is useless because I don't think there's anything to add to this topic).

Correct me, Upasaka Chris, if Atma is wrong, neither the main question is answered nor do the speculations give facts. If people act simply on speculation and what they need to and what they are called to do, where is the place of Dana and merits?

If you still want people to design favicons then don't accept this answer. I don't think any user-designed favicons can used though, on this site, at least until the site 'graduates from beta'.

If one day the site will be graduated from Beta, let the favicon be an eightfold wheel, the symbol of Dharma. Black wheel for Beta and one of Buddhist colors for the main site. Yellow may be too bright, so let it be red (Padma family) or blue (Manjushri's family color, very suitable for the Q & A site).


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What shall I do if a question seems to go off the rails?
Several times I have asked questions here and had no one seem to connect with what I am asking about. I get all kinds of answers about things I was not asking about, and it is like watching blind men shoot at ducks. (I don't mean this disrespectfully, I guess my ducks must be imaginary.)
I have tried adding more info and links to my Question, and giving reply comments to Answers, but usually, it just seems to dig itself deeper and deeper in to a hole. This always amazes me, because I feel like I am asking about simple, commonly understood terms! My recent question about Mindfulness and the Observer is like this. (This has nothing to do with being off-topic for the site, that objection was not brought up. People were happy to join the fray.)
I sometimes come to the conclusion that raising a question did more harm than good, and sometimes I even say that I regret asking. Is there a good way to try to correct such a problem, besides asking the Range Safety Officer to hit the Destruct button?

Tl;DR: if you have a question, something you could try is post it on meta first. Say something like,

I'd like to ask this question:

'XXX XXX XXX?'

Is it clear, unambiguous, answerable, and about Buddhism? Can you suggest any ways to make it clearer, any concerns with it, or shall I go ahead and post it on the main site to get answers there?"

After you post a question there's less you can do. The way it works is:

You release imaginary ducks down-range.
Expect people to fire at will.

Once people pull the trigger there is never ever any calling it back (which is why Range Safety procedures are defined). At most you can inspect the result and correct your aim (or stop firing).
Range Safety Officers stop proceedings if (but only if) the range is not safe -- i.e.:

The targets are not down-range when released
An answer is aimed anywhere other than ... down-range
Anyone crosses the firing line (i.e. walks downrange into the line of fire)

If your ducks are immaterial, a moving target, and/or presented edge-ways, don't be surprised if no-one scores a solid hit. As long as people seem to know the difference between up-range and down-range, I won't tell them how to aim (nor what to aim at).
Have you seen the Moderation policies for Questions? It's permissive. Don't be surprised if people go ahead and try to answer questions whose intent they barely understand. As long as the question makes sense to them they answer, even if it's not the same as the sense/meaning it makes to you.
If you think that "mindful" is a simple, commonly understood term then you may be missing the point:

This is a site about Buddhism
Buddhism has a history, almost all of it non-English
When using English to explain something uncommon (e.g. Buddhism) specialists may use common words in precise, technical, but slightly uncommon ways

When I depicted my experience of programming I used English words in a jargon-laden way. A non-programmer (non-specialist) might read the English but not understand the intended meaning ... e.g. words like "run", "simulate", "thread", "error path", "automate", "test", "incremental", and "in the zone".
Even so I imagined that someone with a background (i.e. training, vocabulary, and experience) like mine might understand my technical answer; if not then too bad but at least no harm done.
Incidentally I don't understand various words you use; e.g. I met "hetaira" in Classical/Ancient History ... but "hetaira archetype" sounds like jargon from some body of knowledge I've never studied (I could only guess its meaning, like the the "blind man" you refer to in your OP). I'm not saying this to complain but to tell you that words which may seem common to you aren't common to me.
Anyway I'm sorry you find the answers disatisfactory. You seem to be asking whether other people have the same experiences as you, and describe them using your vocabulary! Well yes and no, right?
Also if the question was, "has anyone else had this experience?", then perhaps the moderators should have closed it as a "polling" question. I tried to answer it as a question of definitions (e.g. what does "mindful" mean, does Buddhism use "observer" or observation of "self" in its descriptions of entities).

I got lots of laughs out of your answer. The range I was thinking of was a missile / rocket firing range, but oh, well. The archetype reference is to the Jungian archetypes, which I thought were as well-known as the MBTI (essentially everyone) but I am continually surprised at how what I have heard of and taken for granted for years is unknown to many people. But then, I do not watch the news, and so things like Paris bombing or Tsunami can go right by me a week later, as I watch Imaginary Icebergs sail past.

Rails, ducks and rockets was one mixed-up metaphor, not to pursue in every direction (that dog didn't hunt). One thing though, I for one found  answers to your question helpful. I learned electronics when I was 12-ish by reading through the Radio Amateur's Handbook several times, again and again. When I read it I didn't understand most of it. So I read it and understood 10% of it, read it through again and understand a bit more, etc.

I've seen (i.e. read) words like citta ('mind') before, but hadn't previously begun to understand the difference between the (at least) three different words which are all translated as 'mind'.

I used to read the Handbook when I was a child also. I was basically self-taught in electronics, and know more about that than programming (which used to be my career). I guess there is no substitute for time. Learning the subtleties takes a long time. Unlearning them, takes...

Communication relies on common vocabulary. For outer phenomena the vocabulary is pretty well-defined, thanks to much common experience and lots and lots of public discourse over the centuries. For the inner phenomena the vocabulary is pretty bad so far, esp. in English language. When you use words in the sense they are not necessarily used by others, what do you expect?
Also, in addition to vocabulary, there needs to be a common frame of reference - the background and assumptions that make up the context for the conversation.
Which is why you have trouble communicating - you are not a Buddhist, so you are speaking within a your custom frame of reference, and you imbue your words with your own custom meanings.
One of my teachers said, 80% of time spent to get to the first Bodhisattva level is spent on studying the vocabulary - and only remaining 20% of that time are spent on mastering the teaching. This makes sense to me now, since the message of Buddhism is rather evasive and relies on a very intricate network of concepts to be understood. After all, we are using words to get beyond words and conceptual mind to go beyond conceptual mind.
The kinds of things Buddhism likes to talk about seem obvious but in fact have nuances. "Everyone knows what Observer and Mindfulness are - regardless of what I call them everyone should have a similar experience" is a rather naive assumption.

OK, but 'Observer' is a common term. In minutes I came up with three links to pages that discuss it. I have heard it in different contexts (but always recognizably the same as my experience) for years. It never occurred to me that if I threw the question out there that people who had not had the experience would answer, and that there seemed to be no one who had. It is not a custom term, it is well-known and in use. I have trouble imagining that someone who had had the experience would not instantly recognize the use of the word later. That Buddhists seem to not have it is a mystery to me.

You are sooooo stubborn. But then, you're old, what do I want ;)

"Firm as a rock where right and wrong are concerned, yield immediately to others in things that do not matter." The difficulty is determining which it is. "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." Another way of saying it is "I'm 17 with 33 years experience." And, I usually act like it.

Lol, it's all good, I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful. You are fine the way you are. Just not very open minded when you assume you understand things which in fact you do not. But isn't it the case with all of us here? ;)

I can't assume otherwise, that is the very definition of assuming. "Do you think that's air you are breathing now?"


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Are the kinds of question, and what kinds of answers are good, considered on Buddhism.SE?
There are actually many ways to answer here and that is perfect, since there are different kinds of question which should be answered differently.
The Pañha Sutta says that there are four ways of answering questions. One of these ways is to answer with a counter-question; but is doing that welcome or common, on this site?
Have people considered how "the four ways of answering questions" is relevant on this site? Because it seems to be that the focus is just on one kind of question of the four, or to misuse a kind of answering for all kinds of questions.
Atma thought it would be good to provide also a little bit material for this important matter.

The Karma of Questions
Questions of Skill
AN 3.67: Kathavatthu Sutta — Topics for Discussion

(Note: this answer has not been given with the agreement to be means of trade or the purpose of/for trade and/or keep people trapped and bound. How you handle it lies in your sphere, but does not excuse the deed here either.)

just on one kind of question of the four -- Are you saying there are four kinds of question? Would you summarize or list, what are "the four" which you're asking about here?

One that should be answered straight yes/now/this/that. One that should be approached with an detail explaining. One that should be approached with a counter-question(s). And one which should be put aside. Upasaka Chris.

I tried to answer however I did that without reading the three references you quoted at the end. I find it difficult to read a reference unless also you quote some (at least one sentence) of it. Your selecting and quoting an important bit from it might explain to me why you referenced it (what you had in mind), and explain what point I should keep in mind as I read it, and summarize it.

They are quoted, they are and its not to bad to give them a read which might be hard because it takes time, that's the benefit, that's the merit of listening/reading the Dhamma, even if nothing is gained with it at least. Take you time, no need to hurry and even do something one actually would not want to, Upasaka Chris. Its of course not less in such a shout time that Atma confronts you. This ...

... and that there are four types of excellent thoroughbred persons and its even possible to get stirred & agitated by simply a shadow.

This site is mostly meant for the second type of questions, the ones that should be approached with a detailed explanation.
When someone asks the first type of question (categorical yes/no) - we try and complement the answer with a detailed explanation as to why yes or no.
When someone asks the third type of question (that is, a question that is based on incorrect/confused/incomplete understanding and begs for a counter question to help the person investigate the topic for themselves) - we try and give the correct frame of reference, or else ask/help the questioner to edit the question.
When someone asks the fourth type of question (the one that should not be answered) we explain why Buddha recommended to put such questions aside.
Since this site is not meant to be a forum (and is not good at being a forum, actually pretty bad as a forum) - we try to avoid dialogues and polemics in the questions, answers, and comments. We do have a chat feature for people who'd like to discuss things in form of a dialog.

In other words, we give a detailed answer no matter what. So it is really the type of Answers that is constrained, people can ask any Questions they want. That is probably the only sensible way to run a site like this. I have seen situations (on other SE sites) where my questions were simply close-voted with no real help or explanation. So I had no idea why or what to do to improve it. Rewriting got me nothing, as the question was not re-evaluated after heroic edits were made. This site is better, but then we don't get 1000 questions a day.

Detailed answers will kill many questions (e.g. "the instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark"), maybe best approach would be to use the spoiler tag and provide both when deemed necessary? http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/277/7587

What do you want to hide?

@bbozo In this comment and in that comment you seem to be a fan of short, Zen-like or laconic answers. Is it that you want to get short answers to your questions, or that you want to write short answers? How short? There are other meta-topics on this subject: Should we allow/encourage short answers?, and Should this 'zen type' answer be deleted?.

There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question.

"Is that so?"
People give Zen-style answers sometimes (e.g. here).
People might want to answer using Zen-like questions too.
"Can you show that to me?"
I guess that (discussion, rhetorical questions, the Socratic method) is not how we use this site (and not the purpose for which the site was "designed" to be used).
See also this meta-topic: Answers vs Advice -- the consensus then might have been that:

People who are asking for an answer want an answer
If they want advice instead of an answer, they can ask for advice
You can sometimes give advice after you answer, but maybe not instead of answering.

The site isn't meant for back-and-forth discourse/discussion/dialog.
The Kalama sutta for example is a long sequence of questions and answers. If back-and-forth dialog weren't allowed then it would have had to stop almost at the beginning, at the first counter-question, i.e.,

"What do you think, Kalamas? When greed arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?"

Maybe the Kalamas would "get it" immediately from that first counter-question, but we're meant to assume that if someone is asking some question it's because they don't know how to answer it, and want some explanation and not only a counter-question.
See also Answers I don't understand and/or answers that are questions/riddles/koans -- they're not necessarily seen as helpful.

Consider this question, Do thoughts 'create' vedana? I read it as a basic question, which it has various more-or-less informative answers and references. Conversely, this chat might have been an attempt to answer the question with a counter-question, and that apparently had a relatively unsuccessful outcome.

Another thing to consider is that there are two audiences for every question:

The OP who asked the question
Everyone else who reads the answers

A theory is that someone in the future might use Google to search for 'vedana', find that page and want to read the answers ... and that they want to read relatively impersonal or universally-true answers, instead of counter-questions and one-on-one dialog.

Speaking of counter-questions, you can post a comment if you don't understand the question; e.g. you can post a comment to say,

"I don't understand that question, because..."
"Do you mean...?"
"Where did you read that...?"
"Different schools of Buddhism might different answers to that question. Are you asking for an answer from the point of view of a specific school?"

See also this site's Moderation policies for Questions -- i.e. on this site people try to answer questions even if the question is unclear.
You can try to clarify what the question is, but you probably shouldn't expect to get the OP to answer their own question as a result of your asking counter-questions.

+1 for the Google scenario

-1 (mental) for the google scenario and other considerations, since such would mean that the Suttas are useless, because somebody likes to grasp-hold simply this or that. So as assumed, you are not here to serve, but to bind people and make the owner of this benefits prospering while maintaining a livelihood in that way. It does not seem that you understand wholesome and benefical is different to purpose of creation and justification to be. Mr @AndreiVolkov as well as the rest of the team. And think about how overbearingly some of the assumings are. So is this session not meant to serve just?

@SamanaJohann I think the Suttas are not useless, and that this site helps me to understand them -- because I can use the site to ask questions (any question) about them, and to read other people's questions and answers about them.

And its not necessary possible that you understand as it is not necessary that you like to understand. Its even possible that the whole team is not aspirated to lead a way out and lead others out. As told, its good to consider the kamma of questions (and answers).

And do you think that there (suttas) have been answers of different kind, answers which did not satisfy the questions purpose? Answers which the questioner liked to be a straight forward answer? And is, when google hits a question this like as if you take a static sutta? One time you argue that it is a moving thing, one time you argue that it should be perfect when stabil. So what? What do you like to serve? A certain opportunity or an assuming? Its a matter of credit, not to try to make it perfect for everyone, but exactly there where it is possible. Could you give that?

http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1821/answers-i-dont-understand-and-or-answers-that-are-questions-riddles-koans is by the way a perfect answer and is made so that the questioner is able to find out him self by looking.

@SamanaJohann This "meta" is where users discuss (propose) the site's policies and agree (vote) on those proposals. You can post your own meta-answer to http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/1821/254 to explain why you thought that was a good answer  then people could vote on your meta-answer to agree or disagree with your proposal, and that might become new site policy. I also encourage you to post your own answer to this meta-topic to explain what you think policy ought to be (so people can see, discuss, and/or vote on your proposal).

Re your previous comment, unfortunately I didn't understand much of it. I might agree with you that many answers on this site are not very good answers. But if they try to be answers, then that ("questions and answers") is what this site is for. There are probably other places (in real life, and on the internet) to have discussions etc. This site has a slightly specialized purpose, i.e. "Q&A": Questions and Answers.

So you are here as an entertainer of this site or what? Or are you using this side to help people in Dhamma? What are you obligated to? Dhamma in sentences is no a matter of knowledge and actually totally without any value if it is not given and taken in line with Dhamma, as it is simply about intentions and following actions.
There is the possibility to discuss a question (and answer), there is a possibility to mention something to a question (and answer) and there is the cart possibility when it goes offtopic and it you like to maintain a longtime beauty q&a appearing, waiting and correct if

... the intention is visible for one self, the use is visible for one self and then, if such is not, thinking, is such is really disturbing if somebody likes to follow a certain stream of thoughts. If you are obligated to the ES, search for an other means as Dhamma to make it a scarify. In no way you should harm those you are obligated to, and as told, your are plenty trapped here and it needs plenty of righteous work to come out here again.

@SamanaJohann Bhante, asking users "why are you here on this site" (e.g. "So you are here as an entertainer of this site or what?") seems like "a polling question" of a type that's considered off-topic. If you want to ask that as a new question on meta or ask it in a chat room (perhaps this site's main chat room) then some users might be willing to answer and/or discuss that.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

laughing heartily * just stay there where you are obligated to, no need to assume others intent. The OP here question for example is a "Yes/No" to be answering question, actually and the rest of fermentation are simply rationalizations. No chat, it's useless. The moderators can clean it later if they feel they need.

@SamanaJohann I (personally) was interested in Buddhism for quite a long time but didn't learn very much about it. I eventually came to this site to learn more about it (by reading and asking questions) and to learn how to be without (or with less) dukkha. I then began to answer some questions too, hoping that anyone who knew better could correct my answer if it's wrong (so, it was safe for me to answer), and hoping that if I answered the questions which seemed relatively easy, then that would help to free other people (the true experts) on this site to answer other more difficult questions.

Eventually various people asked me to be one of this site's moderators. I suppose they chose me for various reasons, one of those reasons is that I've used other Stack Exchange sites in the past and sort of more or less know how other Stack Exchange sites function -- e.g. how each site's community chooses site-specific policies, how they govern themselves, what the software features are, why the SE software has been designed in the way it has (i.e. how to use it) etc. Nobody (including moderators) are paid for this: we're volunteers, here to learn and/or help and/or perhaps for some community.

I have various "obligations" (e.g. as a 'house-holder' my being here is part-time, I have other work to do too). Other "obligations" are spelled out in the user terms of service and more or less defined in the various policies and recommendations. They're mostly ordinary, not unusual for any moderated internet site e.g. don't spam, don't flame, etc. -- these are obligations but they're also habitual. Plus I have obligations to this community -- as moderator my job is to inform people about the SE network policies (e.g. "Be nice") ...

... and to implement the policies (for example like this one) which are defined with and by the community.

Also I answer question because that helps me to learn: many (perhaps most) of my answers include references, quotes. I upvote questions that I want to see other people's answers to (and I upvote questions which I have tried to answer myself, and compare other people's answers with mine).

So you don't see that you would have some obligation in regard of Dhamma at the first place, is that right, Mr. Upsaka(?) Chris.

btw. http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/1561/254 that's a good answer, and its good to advice him/here to give away his bought books, which introduced him to such ways of Dhamma not in line of Dhamma. Or to simply start to think. Wisdom can not be transferred of exchanged. Stack and others of course. Spoke of demanding being practical in another meta, which is actually acting to bind, feeding and consume. U. @ChrisW, as far as possible to see, you have been chosen because of your treasures and its good to keep them also in regard of the subsection in life or even make it the overlay.

Treasures, SE and its Community could learn more as ever considered, not thinking that what is known is already smart. But lets stay on Buddhism and the necessary modification of usual use into something quite fare above the intentions and benefits as in this circle it self.


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How do I avoid the "What does Father want?" problem
I have recent experience with asking questions with what I thought were well-known terms, only to see the words understood differently. Terminology and interpretation seem to come up A LOT on the SE sites. And, in the world in general. By the way. Hmm...
When I was a child, I ran in to this scenario with my father often: [contrived example] "Get me a fork." (I run to grab a dinner fork and return it to him. "No, I meant a serving fork. (I look puzzled) He says: "If you didn't know, why didn't you ask?" But for me, there was never any doubt. I didn't interpret or interpolate, or guess or even waver a bit. I would have bet my very life that he wanted a dinner fork. [end of example]
So, when we read words, we understand them in the way we are accustomed, and the writer might understand different. It never occurs to anyone that a difference is there, until communication breaks down. Is it possible to avoid wasting time and energy on this kind of thing? Skeptics.SE requires some very definite research and references to establish the validity and content of every single question. I think this is irritating, but for them it might be necessary.
For the field of Buddhism, which has lots of specific terminology, perhaps we need something similar when establishing what a question is about?

Has Mr/Mrs no comprende considered his/here question seriously?
& did Upasaka @ChrisW consider his statement seriously? "More like the StackOverflow kind of site, which is less about theory, but where you ask practical problems, solving problems in practice.
To stay practical. And to stay learning being practical, Atma suggests: http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1919/are-the-kinds-of-question-and-what-kinds-of-answers-are-good-considered-on-bud, or was it not understood what had happened around the fork. One who has focus on dinner would certainly not see the serving tasks.

@SamanaJohann I am trying to understand the point you are making here and in the meta question you linked. But I am lost in a blizzard of words. Is it possible to make the point succinctly? You could ask a Meta question and then we could all get involved. Thank you!

....sigh.... *  :-)

IMO @SamanaJohann is seriously recommending practice, practical problems, practical questions, and/or being practical. The linked meta-topic was about kinds of questions to ask. He posted three links (to references) in that topic, which I presume he is now recommending to us, to read, on the subject of asking questions.

@ChrisW I tried to read, but there was so much wording that I could not follow. For the record, I think that understanding people is very practical, and we will not get very far on a site like this without being able to communicate. So this meta question is about how to not make assumptions when reading without even realizing that one is doing so, and how not to make assumptions when projecting ideas when writing, without even realizing that one is doing so. Very vital points.

@nocomprende this question is likely more suited for the Philosophy Stack. It could be made into a philosophy of language question somehow....
As for your question, I'm posting an answer below.

This is a site about Buddhism so the terminology used here is Buddhist terminology.
If one is not familiar with this terminology, the best thing would be to learn about it, so that one can understand the framework of questions and answers on the site.
Terminology on Buddhism SE cannot change into non-buddhist terminology since that would create obstruction for the entire frame of reference that this SE is working within.
The best advice I can think of, is to try to learn the Buddhist terminology so in the case that one is a non-buddhist, one understands from what point of view Buddhism deals with questions.
Hope this helps.

OK, so what is the Buddhist term for Observer in the sense that I mean it, since no one here seems to know or be able to provide a reference? I have seen the term used many times by non-Buddhists (I think), but am at a loss for the proper term here. If I use the word I know in a way that seems very clear and is used by others, but no one here seems to "get it", what do I do then?

Buddhism does not recognize an "enduring entity, a Self, an Observer". This is verifyable through the practice insight meditation. There is no one "doing the observing", there is nobody "home". What happens is a stream of impermanent mental and physical phenomena and when one has wrong view, one apprehends these impersonal phenomena as a Self, a Me, an Observer etc.

Regarding the term "Observer", I would specifiy which reality we are dealing with. In Sammuti-sacca, i.e. Conventional reality, we can talk about an observer. In Paramattha-sacca, i.e. Ultimate reality, we cannot.

Is this a "Father" from Transactional Analysis or something? Anyway, to continue ...

I would have bet my very life that he wanted a dinner fork.

If places at the dinner table were already set, so that he already a dinner fork, why would he be asking for a dinner fork?
Ditto if he is about to serve: if he asks for a fork then, it's for a serving fork.
After you've practised helping to lay the table, after being taught to do so, seeing people at the table daily, you may understand (when you look at it) what's there, what's missing, and what's expected.
See also shared (or 'joint') attention which is part of 'early development'.

But for me, there was never any doubt.

You assumed (wrongly) that you understood?

So, when we read words, we understand them in the way we are accustomed

I guess many users on this site are multi-lingual (not anglophone). You have "no comprende" as a handle, but I don't see why you'd think there's a one-to-one mapping between words and meaning.
Naturally you do understand something, automatically (parsing language is part of your brain's "firmware"); but it may be better to assume that understanding is provisional.
There isn't (a single meaning) even in English. If I said even the most mundane phrase, "go to the store", that might mean (in certain specialized contexts) to go to the private storage (e.g. "larder"), the commercial store (e.g. "shop"), the military store (e.g. "PX or armoury"), a web site (e.g. Amazon.com), or possibly some data store.
You mentioned "Imaginary Icebergs" yesterday which might be figurative poetry. I try to be more of a technical writer (e.g. of user manuals) than a literary author (e.g. of fiction).
Anyway if you're trying to learn something new then you ought to be open to (even looking for) new meaning (and if you're not trying to learn something new, and about Buddhism, I ask myself why you're posting a question).

For the field of Buddhism, which has lots of specific terminology, perhaps we need something similar when establishing what a question is about?

I think that many questions I ask are about specific terminology, or use specific terminology, whether in English like ...

What is "rebirth"?
What is "deathless"?

... or in Pali (which I understand to be a language, some of words of which Buddhists have tried to use in a specific way), like,

What is "effluent (Āsava)"
What is "identity-view (sakkāya-diṭṭhi)

Skeptics.SE requires some very definite research and references to establish the validity and content of every single question.

Well that may be a good idea.
Today for example I read an English translation of a sutta which mentioned "liberation".
I found another translation of that sutta and it said "release".
I looked at the Pali version of the sutta and it said "something-vimutti".
So I learned that vimutti is a word.
Look that up in a Glossary and it's given as "deliverance".
IMO it's not a very famous word (I don't know why but nirvana/nibanna is more famous, isn't it?).
Still perhaps it's an important word.
I can search for that word (e.g. using Google, and/or on Access to Insight).
I can search for it on this web site.
If I still don't understand it or have a question about it, then I can (and might) ask about it on the site.
Having done that "definite research" I might have formed a specific, better, understandable question.
Furthermore I can give a reference (i.e. to a specific word like vimutti, to a sutta which uses it, or to an article which explains it and that I still don't fully understand).
Doing that might still be hit-and-miss, but it's making an effort.
(Generally I dislike re-reading my questions but I like people reading people's answers to them ... I find my questions are pénible so I try not to inflict them on people often, but the answers are treasure).

Another type of question (which some people like and might prefer that you ask) is when you try to practice Buddhism, and then have a question about the practice.
More like the StackOverflow kind of site, which is less about theory, but where you ask practical problems, solving problems in practice.

I thought that the relationship of Mindfulness and the Observer was very practical, and it arose from my experience. At least one of the people I linked to seems to think so as well.

famous poem: The Imaginary Iceberg, by Elizabeth Bishop (married to Robert Browning). Sometimes poems are more important than facts. Like, the Heart Sutra.

I thought that the relationship of Mindfulness and the Observer was very practical -- Well yes (I think, because that came up in the context of supervising yourself at work). Using my (private) vocabulary perhaps I prefer a more 'integrated' experience (and, long ago now, felt alarm that such an observer may be 'unwholesome'), though it's also true that a certain (precise type of) 'detachment' may be desirable. Using Buddhist (common) vocabulary (i.e. Buddhist specializations of words like 'mindful') there's a mis-match between your (special) use of the words and their (special) use.

Sometimes poems are more important than facts. Like, the Heart Sutra. I've seen someone (some old anglophone non-Buddhist) describe "important" as a "dusty" word. My knowledge of poetry is fairly naive; it's not a subject (a body of knowledge) that I've ever been formally taught; I gather from overhearing English majors ('major' as in 'undergraduate') that literary theory is a subject; and maybe there's philosophy about the theory of 'meaning' (is that called "semiotics"?). I specialized towards Maths (instead of English etc.) because I thought Maths is more objectively right and wrong ...

... I thought I liked Maths because it allowed me  to know for myself (when writing equations) whether what was writing was (objectively) 'correct', and thus avoid having my work (if I were instead writing essays or poetry) judged by (as I naively saw it then, in my early teens) a merely subjective/aesthetic/private opinion of whoever the English teacher might be. I looked at the Imaginary poem that you referenced and didn't understand its meaning (i.e. I thought that its meaning if any wasn't obvious to me). The Iceberg might be a metaphor for something, I suppose, but don't know what.

Are you saying that the Heart Sutra is not factual? :)

I studied Philosophy for a little while as an Undergraduate, thinking it would help me know objectively what is right and wrong. It does not, except after the fact. It is like going to a Coroner when you feel unwell. To me, when I read the Imaginary Iceberg today, it seemed to be eloquently about nonduality, which had not clicked in the past. I like the Heart Sutra, because it systematically disavows every single major truth of Buddhism, such as: "There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no end to suffering, no path to follow." If this is factual, then Buddhism is a lie. (Implication?)

The curriculum specializes earlier in the UK: as an undergraduate I only had one subject i.e. various flavours of maths ... ditto at school, for the last 2 or 3 years of my secondary (high) school my only subjects (except one "general studies" class mostly of 20th century history) were maths, more maths, and physics (plus french which I already knew). I studied a few languages (latin, greek, german, russian, french, and english) between the ages of about 11 and 14. I've basically never studied any humanities (e.g. Soc and Psych) nor Philosophy, nor American literature (except Science Fiction).

Wow. Well, SciFi should be enough for anyone, if they read Larry Niven, I suppose :-) In US college / university, one can go the first 2 years (age 18-20 or so) without even declaring a major, let alone having any particular direction in school prior to that. Maybe someone could do some research on how this radical difference between US and UK education pays off? What is each system good for and bad for? I have long said that specializing early is the way to become an expert, but I never imagined not studying other things as a teenager. Maybe being an expert is not the most important thing?

@nocomprende The Heart Sutra is a.k.a. "Perfection of Wisdom". So I think it's meant to describe the insight of a well-enlightened bodhisattva. Buddhism suggests that a cause of suffering is ignorance, so 'perfection of wisdom' => 'no suffering'. That's what and why the Buddha's teaching is ... I don't understand that as implying that the teaching is non-factual, nor that Buddhism is a lie. "No path to follow" reminds me of the Brahmana Sutta ...

... which isn't meant to imply that there is for example no Eight-fold Way, I think it's saying that having reached the destination the Buddha became trackless (apada).

I suggest that Buddhism is a lie to children. The Heart Sutra is intended to wake them from the lie, at such time as they can awaken. It is like seeing the morning light in your room when you open your eyes. It is beautiful, but to one stuck in the "cave" it is too bright to be comfortable. But that is a poetic interpretation, of a poem, and so does not put my dinner on the table.

It sounds odd (and wrong) to me to describe it as a lie (although yes I have read the 'lie to children' Wikipedia article ... when they taught me Physics they more-or-less avoided 'lie to children' by teaching it as a history of physics, e.g. "Rutherford's model of the atom" etc.). Re. Buddhism, a parallel to this is described in the story of the "parable of the burning house" in the Lotus Sutra. Also Nothing Exists is maybe a warning or an example.

Is it possible to avoid wasting time and energy on this kind of thing?

You can ask here on meta if your question makes sense to other people and if they are understanding as you expect.
Other than that, you can get a sense from the answers of where people are drifting. And if the answers are still insufficient and you feel at lost on how to formulate your question in a different way, you can come to conclusion that the only thing left to do is study the subject at hand and clear your doubts. Moreover, a few paragraph long of text are often unable to properly convey hard-to-understand information. From what I see, many answers for your last question provided links, to wikipedia, to articles, and to books.
In that sense, they did provide some material where the reader can look up further -- which in some sense also means "I might have not made any sense with what I'm saying, but here are some sources that might help you in your inquiry". In a way, taking the material and going further is also acknowledging the limits of this community to understand and answer questions -- which is an important thing, I think.
You might think your question was a simple one. But that episode shows how it is not. Take "what is a bug?": most programmers (which are people you'd expect to know this) think they know what it is, but you'll probably get answers that refer to ambiguous or different things (hence, forerunners of the field coming up with more precise definitions using as terminology "error", "fault", "failure", etc).
For instance, you gave a definition for "The Observer", but one thing to ask is if that definition is precise enough to be clearly understood by your audience. For one thing, the definitions you gave are a couple of sentences long. As a contrast, the link I referred to in my answer points to a book entirely devoted to a single term: sati (tr. as "mindfulness").
Personally, upon seeing The Observer is the experience of being aware of myself, my first impulse is to reflect what 'experience', 'being aware', and 'myself' refer to?. One could read this and think I'm unable to understand common sense and ordinary english words: the problem again is that the formulation insufficiently precise to give a satisfying comparison. I did my best to fill the gaps and answer as I understood, as I did not want to sound like nitpicking in the comments. Again, I and others provided material.
A tangent here is that buddhist literature has a vocabulary that, often, is precise to a rare degree (and if we take abhidhamma in consideration, we get into formal ground). This has repercussions if one is trying to compare two systems of thought.
On another note, since you gave personal definitions, people felt they could tackle the question from what they understood. What you could have done from the beginning is better establish the field you are in (e.g. with a body of strong references) to avoid answers from people who have no prior knowledge. I for one, would never tackle a question that asks for a buddhist understanding of "identity" according to philosopher XYZ, if I'm not familiar with his/her works.
Finally, I think part of the burning out is the unending flow of comments. Engaging in them is optional -- and I think it's wise to chose not to when it's about back-and-forth discussions of concepts that won't get a satisfying explanation in such modality.

(I didn't understand what "formal ground" means).

I meant that in its attempt to disambiguate the teachings, it ends up moving towards a formal system -- IIRC, monks from old even wrote books about proof methods. It might not be rigorous to certain current standards, but then again, mathematical proofs are considered informal from the logician standpoint...

I recently purchased Beth Jacobs book about Abhidhamma, so perhaps I can reach bedrock soon.

@nocomprende I hope it's a good reading! I just re-read this answer and it felt somewhat rushed and rude, I'm sorry if it sounded like that.

We have to come terms that even in Buddhism each lineage has different interpretation of key terminology sometime bending them to suite or justify a certain mode of pratice. Also pali is not easy to render into English in some cases. With these two issues when certain concepts are rendered into english the issue regarding terminology is further exacerbated. So it would be worldwide to be elaborate as possible on what you mean. If possible include the Pali terms within brackets if you know them.
Also many question in this site seems to be from novice. In such case do not assume what we might know the terms from your background on the site.
I see you have brought up the notion of an observer. This also many present in different ways based on the how someone would explain it. At the core of the rendering is trying to get right of the grasping to concept of person as such grasping give arise to unsatisfactoriness, e.g., someone external has done something not agreeable or you wishing to be of some other nature. One perhaps misunderstood rendering is there is no observer. More correct rendering is what you know about an  observer is perception you generate in your mind (Satta Puggala Sanna) about the observer and not the actual observer. Also what you have is concepts about an observer our tendency is to take a static or entity view on the person but in reality is changing process conditions by Dependent Origination. Any mind generated view is a concept (pannatti) hence this is why the book dealing with concepts of the types of Persons (Puggala) is dealt with in the Abhidhamma is called Puggalapannatti. What is a Pannatti is not atomic as it constitutes by Citta, Chetisika and Rupa which are atomic. Buddhism has 2 truths which are atomic / indivisible / ultimate and non atomic / divisible / conventional or conceptual. Hence ultimately even in Buddhism concepts some further explanation and clarification may be merited to avoid miscommunication for people who might not exactly know Buddhist concepts so the site remains accessible to people who are new to Buddhism.

The crux of your issue is that there are many different schools of Buddhism.
They mostly parallel on about everything, some exceptions of course... but the underlying world view varies only subtly with most schools.
There are lineages of varying traditions, where idea A might be called two different things, or word B refers to multiple ideas differently across schools.
This is why it is recommended to take on a guru, a mentor and teacher already versed in the terms, and practicing their school and/or linage and studying it.
These things can be studied in books and texts, but it is easier to communicate ideas and address questions in person.

The problem might be that words like "mindful" and "observer" might (allegedly) have a meaning, not only in different schools of Buddhism, but also in conventional American English and/or in schools of (Western) Psychology, which the OP has been versed in.


text:
Could it be that there is a "bug" when inserting a link later on in a question/Answer?
Atma was wondering, having been goodwilled reproved that he was giving a link double (in some case) and had just observed that such actually happens if you insert a link via the link funktion later on in certain cases. It will simply override an existing or use an existing no. twice.
Maybe useful to give it a check and maybe even an improvement or a notification "don't use link function when insert link late on, but do it in the [[..]] (..) way"


text:
Preaching answers
Should we allow preaching answers sidetracking the question?
That is, should we allow answers that disregard the literal question and instead just try to preach?
Examples of answers I'm referring to:

Q: What are the dates researchers most commonly attribute to the period of the life of the Buddha?
A: That is not important. The important is to do meditation and etc etc.
Q: Was the Buddha harsh?
A: There's no sutta or veda for every question but an acceptance can always be here (only you know what it is).

Conversely, should any moderation be performed on preaching comments -- specially when uncalled for? e.g. telling someone to follow right speech because of disliking how he or she was addressed -- specially when one does not know if the person being talked to is Buddhist or not.
The thing to keep in mind is that many of us have made the case that this site should welcome buddhists and non-buddhists alike. So, at the very least, I don't see how it's appropriate to treat every user here as buddhists.
EDIT:
Since this discussion might come up again in the future, let me expand the context of this question and clarify things a bit to avoid confusion. Though I think the concern here is one, I'll divide it in two parts.
On Answers
From the examples above, I hope it is clear the nature of the exchange I'm referring to. This is not a matter of whether answers should be teaching (dhamma) or should not be teaching (dhamma); obviously, any clarification of a dhamma topic could already be qualified as "teaching dhamma" anyways.
I'm afraid it's not quite settled in this site that "Buddhism equals dhamma" (as far as "Buddhism" here refers to the term that serves as the title of this community and delienates our scope), at least from what I have seen since I joined here. It's my understanding that, from the beginning, there's an implicit (and often explicit) attitude to welcome topics of:

historical nature
philosophical nature
cultural nature
artistic nature
and religious nature.

In that sense, I understand dhamma is just one of many topics related to "Buddhism" we would like to provide an open door to.
If we come to agree that the scope of this site is not restricted to dhamma, than I think we must respect the boundaries of each question and settle that this kind of answers (those that diverge from the original request) are "not an answer" -- regardless if such "non-answer" is believed to be valuable for the one who questioned, or for future users who may come up here. A few reasons why:

The belief that such "answers" are valuable comes invariably from those desiring to provide "dhamma teaching" (whether it answers the question or not); it is not necessarily the opinion of those looking for actual answers to their questions.

[Consequently] it likely alienates users who asks questions (and, in particular, those who asks "non-dhamma questions", but are interest in some on-topic aspect of Buddhism). E.g. those users who really need specific information, only to find something else being offered. If they don't get what they come for here, if it's not useful to them, why come again?

This is also related to the reason why why Christianity.SE decided that pastoral advices are off-topic (see their help center and discussions here and here on how they deal with it).
Finally, this kind of dynamics in internet forums likely detracts seasoned users. I'm of the position that sanghas and personal teachers are the proper communities for interactions that S.E. is simply ill designed to be useful. @yuttadhammo's last post might also be a good related reading to have in mind when reflecting on such matters.
Now, if on the contrary, we decide that this should be a community strictly devoted to dhamma, I guess this should be clarified.
On mindless preaching
This is more of a "call to discussion": not every user here is buddhist and this has been problematic every other month when we are not mindful of that. I think it reflects in some answers (as discussed above) and it reflects in the general attitude towards some users and their questions -- creating confusion, which further makes good users distance themselves, etc.
While many here are buddhists, we should expect users who subscribe to other religions, who are atheists, agnostics, who are researchers interested in buddhist history, who are artists interested in buddhist art, who are meditators (but not necessarily buddhists), or just a general non-buddhist curious person. Thus, I think it's sensible to expect that, unless stated otherwise, a user may not subscribe to, say, the doctrine of anatta or feel bound to any other buddhist teaching.
Is this any relevant to be discussed? Is it not? Should something be done about it? ....

You added to your question, but I don't know how to change my answer. If  my answer doesn't satisfy you please tell me why or how you find it unsuitable.

I hope I didn't change the meaning of the question. I added more context after reading Samana Johann's answer and realizing it wasn't as clear as I'd like -- and also to better inform future discussions that could come from this. Overall I think all questions tackle what I meant. But, of course, you know you can write another answer if you have anything else in mind :)

I hope I write enough already. Sometimes I find an answer off-topic but I don't delete it because it's not flagged or downvoted. Is that OK or would you rather moderators were stricter? IMO this said it should depend on the community's reaction to each individual/specific question and answer, so I rarely delete an answer.

I would be OK with moderators deleting, on sight, answers like the ones I exemplified: ones that clearly are not directly answering the obvious meaning of the question or putting the question on the side in favor of something else -- regardless of being flagged. If it's kind of a grey area, I would leave to the community. So I think I advocate something slightly stricter, as I would be considering indirect/"personal" answers to clear questions as "not an answer" -- even if some could consider a "wise/dhamma answer" otherwise.

The answer to the "harsh" question was deleted by its owner after a while (after no comments, no downvotes, and no flags). I didn't find the first question about "dates" but that answer looks off-topic. It's hard to know which answers you're really asking about unless you'll identify them (which you could, and use the [meta-tag:specific-answer] tag). If you don't want to publicly name-and-discuss an answer whose existence you disagree with, you can just flag it for a moderator to consider.

I wasn't much concerned with using real examples when I wrote this. I just made fictitious ones for illustration (even if based on some I already knew).

Buddhism is the study of the teaching of the Buddha; As such, even if such an answer is not on the level such that the OP can appreciate it, others who come by and see such a response may benefit from it themselves.
Even if every user here isn't Buddhist, the answers given in your example are, generally speaking, more or less the appropriate response to many of the questions asked here, as far as the teaching of the Buddha is concerned, even if they don't explicitly answer the question in a conventional sense.
So in conclusion, I feel its appropriate to leave such answers be, let them be upvoted/downvoted; if nothing else than as food for thought. The OP doesn't have to accept them as the answer, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have them there either.

Generally if you want to give advice you should also answer the question.
So this is more-or-less OK:

Q:
What are the dates researchers most commonly attribute to the period
  of the life of the Buddha?
A:
Well the dates according to this is so-and-so but according to that it's
  so-and-so, and here's a reference which explains why so-and-so thinks it's such-and-such.
Meditation is etc.

However the example you gave is not.
In the extreme I can imagine someone giving the same answer to every question ...

"That's not important."
"Practice and find out for yourself."

If you don't want to answer the question, why not find where else to write that advice?
You should try to be sensitive of who you'e writing to (look at their past questions to see what their interests and/or level of knowledge is), and how the question is phrased.
If the advice is a natural segue which follows from the answer and the question, so much the better. If the advice has nothing to do with the question it's probably off-topic. If the advice is directly contrary to the question (e.g. "Q: How can kill people?" -- "A: Don't!") then that's more on-topic (and is sometimes but not always alright instead of an answer).
I slightly disagree with Ryan's answer: someone who wants to ask about meditation, wants to read about meditation, has many other topics (other pages) where they can do that. Try to be sensitive to whether the advice is relevant to the topic ... and, on the whole, refrain fro posting advice that's completely off-topic.
"The Tathagata has a sense of the proper time for saying something."
I agree with Ryan that moderators may let the community (including the OP) vote and common on the answer: at least, I think that's been the current moderation policy for answers which are not-an-answer (see Moderating answers which don't answer the question?).
Also "preaching" has been mentioned in at least one other meta-topic and I think it's generally unwelcome, perhaps by definition and even as an answer. It may  be a matter of attitude: preaching may be expecting, forcing, requiring, demanding, whereas instead what we ought to be doing is "offering" an answer.

If one asks, it is pretty needed to be intent to be taught. So this question is merely not well considered but simply as other reasons and intents. Given the fact that you love to urge this is not a chat-room. So what?
"Please answer but beware that you never ever teach a lesson. You can tell me things that I like, or that a merely bla bla, but never teach me!"
If your undertaking is merely meant to amass content and make people willing to put content inside so that search machines do the patrons a good and/but to work for misleading of the people its pretty good if you cut away of any notion that somebody who is asking seeks for somebody who teaches him.
Maybe you write "Ask before you answer if that is the desired question!"
People what are you up here and how are you to judge about an answer? Not to speak about going between somebody who asks and somebody gives a lesson?
Tread somebody as a Buddhist? What that notion origin from? To be smarter or somebody who talks different as a normal righteous person?
It seems to be more a "we don't need no education" but let us amass together movement. Let that all in and then throw away what we don't like. It seems that you have adopted the ways certain trades.
Atma guesses you should reflect a lot of what is your intention here and if such has any founding anywhere.
And if you think that this answer is not treacherous you would be wrong. If you you don't like it/such there are serial ways:

delete what ever you don't like
tell what answer you like to have when you ask
try to dispel everybody who ever has a notion of teaching

There is no need to answer and one you should know is, that a wise has no reason to answer or to rebuke. That is simply compassion. Of course others who depend on certain societies and there ways would not be able to stick just to that.
As for the software, it has already plenty of ways and they are not that bad. But as it is a deep problem within the heart, ever kind of way will be not right for those who seek harmony but are not willing to gain wisdom at first place.
Atma will abstain from quoting you relevant teachings form an unsurpassable trainer, trainer of those ready to be tamed.
And yes, the Buddha was not only once harsh, especially if things are made under his banner.
It goes all straight back to here: Are the kinds of question, and what kinds of answers are good, considered on Buddhism.SE?

It's sensible to ask ourselves what we are up to here, but parts of the answer before that ("never ever teach a lesson" and "merely meant to amass content") could sound like an extreme "Straw man" position, which could seem to argue (perhaps wrongly) that, "It would be wrong to never teach, and therefore we must always preach."

I'm sorry for any confusion, I've added some extra information and rationale to contextualize the point of the question.

Does Thiago Silva ever asked "Sure?". May he try it, just "is it sure?" Of course such an advice could be treacherous and drive others away but "sure?". Following a strategy to get people: such will work "sure?" You are the reason why... "sure?" I don't like it. "sure?" Doing a little to fondle defilement will keep the wheel run. "sure?" You confused me! "Sure?"


text:
What is the meaning of *modern World*?
What is the meaning of modern world and it's use around Dhamma and Vinaya and in Buddhism. It would be maybe interesting to know the words folk etymology and original etymology, it's "everybodies" notion and its deeper meaning in regard of Dhamma. Maybe also certain other preoccupations in regard of modern and world and modern world.
And could there be traced a word or word combination used for similar purpose, in the ancient texts?

I moved this to Meta because its subject is clearly the tag (what this tag means and what subjects it should be used for); unlike similar questions about dukkha and buddha-nature which I left on the main site because they're also questions about Buddhist terminology/dharma.

I created the modern-world tag in the early days of the site. I intended it to be used to tag any questions that have something to do with the modern world as we live it now and how practice and the modern world support each other or not as the case may be. Topics that I thought would be under this would be

technology
careers
relationships
money
capitalism
politics generally
environmental concerns
things I'd not thought of

I put a tag wiki in to describe which I think is a fair description of what I intended

Particular issues relating to Buddhism as practiced today. These
  topics include but are not limited to technological, political and
  consumer issues that impact on Buddhist thought and practice.

But if anyone (you?) wants to retag the questions, edit the tag-wiki or put in additional tags to sub-categorise it then you should totally do it.
Hope that helps

One of my favorite tags on the stack, kudos Crab